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Goro Majima
"Ain't about money. For yakuza, it's all about power. Those that lose power have to give way to those that have it." '— Majima to Saejima, ''Yakuza 5 Backstory While much of Majima's childhood is unknown, he appears to have joined the yakuza at a young age. The furthest scene into Majima's past has him talking with Saejima about an upcoming hit on behalf the Tojo Clan. The plan is to promote the Sasai Family to a higher position by carrying out a hit on the Ueno Seiwa Family Patriarch, whom has recently been released from prison and plans to rebuild his clan. Bringing with him a bag containing 6 revolvers - each loaded with 6 bullets, for a total of 36 shots - Majima discusses the upcoming hit with Saejima. Majima is concerned for Yasuko's safety, as it is guaranteed that both of them will end up in prison for their actions, but Saejima simply brushes him off, saying it's "bad luck." On the day of the hit however, Majima receives a phone call from Kazuo Shibata to forbid him from carrying out the assassination, as the Dojima Family refused to hold joint responsibility for their actions. When Majima refuses, saying that he will not abandon his oath brother Saejima, Shibata and his lackeys attack him. Despite his best efforts, he is overwhelmed by their numbers and ends up chained to a pole. Even still, Majima resists, refusing to bow to anyone but men he respects. His captor picks up a knife and gouges out Majima's left eye, before leaving him at the mercy of Shimano. Three years after the hit, Majima is held captive in Sotenbori, Osaka, under surveillance from Tsukasa Sagawa. During his later years in Osaka, after the Vacant Lot Dispute, he befriends Naoki Katsuya, an action film actor at the time, and marries Mirei Park, who is an aspiring idol at the time. However, his marriage with Park ends poorly, and Majima divorces her shortly after discovering that Park had aborted her pregnancy without telling him. It is implied that Mirei still harbors feelings for Majima years later, with the two planning to reconnect at Haruka's debut concert; it is unclear whether or not Majima returns her affections. Majima is held captive in "the hole" for a year for his defiance against Shimano. In 1987 he is released to live a civilian life in Sotenbori, though he is still kept under strict watch of Tsukasa Sagawa. He ends up as manager of the Cabaret Grand, with the promise of returning to Shimano's family if he can make 100 million yen in profits. Majima reluctantly falls into his role of "Lord of the Night", turning the Grand around and making it one of the most well known attractions in Sotenbori. Despite this, he is unhappy, having to avoid confrontations and be walked all over by the Grand's customers. He meets his quota, but Sagawa raises the debt up to 500 million, giving Majima a choice of either continuing his work at the Grand, or accepting a job that will clear the debt immediately. Majima reluctantly agrees to carry out a hit on Makoto Makimura - in part, due to Sagawa's threats - despite having never killed anyone before. Sagawa tells Majima that his target is a ruthless pimp that forces college girls into working for him through a telephone club. Majima is then given just two days to kill Makimura. Majima heads off to the telephone club, connecting with a woman who says that she knows a Makoto Makimura, and she leads him to a massage parlor owned by the man, also known as God Hands. When he finds Makimura's massage parlor, Hogushi Kaikan, he unsheathes his dagger and rushes inside, only to find the place empty. As he's about to leave, a young woman accidentally walks into him, immediately believing he's a thief. Majima quickly abates her fear by telling her that he's one of Makimura's patients. The woman, who Majima soon realizes is blind, insists upon giving him a massage to alleviate his alleged pain. Majima falls asleep during the massage, and is awoken by the sound of Makimura walking in, who sees his full back tattoo and realizes that he's a yakuza. Makimura sends the woman out for an errand run, and then attacks Majima. After their fight, a group of Omi Alliance members barge in, demanding a Makoto Makimura. Majima looks over in confusion at the man he's bested, when the woman returns, and it is revealed that she is the real Makoto Makimura. The Omi Alliance members kidnap Makoto, and shoot the man previously thought to be Makimura. Before he loses consciousness, he begs Majima to keep Makoto safe. Majima chases her down, and sneaks Makoto away, ending up in an alley where Makoto clings to his legs and cries. Majima hesitantly pulls out his dagger, knowing that he must kill her in order to complete the task given to him by Sagawa, but his conscience won't allow it, and he instead decides to keep her safe. Later, once they are safe in a borrowed storage shed, Majima questions Makoto as to why the yakuza are after her. Though she says that doesn't entirely know herself, she reveals her past of being a human trafficking victim, which caused her to go blind as a result of psychological trauma. It was Lee Wen Hai - the man who Majima had previously thought to be Makoto Makimura - that rescued and later took her in. Majima sympathizes with Makoto and gives her a few vague details of his own similarly traumatizing past. Majima is confused as to why a blind woman wears a watch, and Makoto concedes that it's a bit ridiculous and discards her watch. Majima is seen putting it into his pocket. Majima then goes to meet up with Lee, and hears out his plan to escape Sotenbori and get both Majima and Makoto to safety and away from the Omi Alliance's grasp. Lee's plan is to kill a body double in Makoto's place, but Majima refuses to let an innocent die for their sake, and fights Lee again in order to prevent him from carrying out the plan on his own. Majima discards the bag containing security camera pictures of their mark along with a spare uniform of Makoto's in a park trash can, only to find out the next day that the double was murdered anyways at the hands of Homare Nishitani, patriarch of the Kijin clan. When Majima fights Nishitani at the Grand, he reveals that there are two sides in the conflict, and that he is being paid by a Tojo benefactor to bring Makoto back before Sagawa's men kill her. After the altercation between him and Nishitani, Sagawa asks Majima about the hit he's supposedly carried out, suspicious about the state of the body - with the girl's face bashed in to the point of her being unrecognizable - and why he'd been so careless as to have it be discovered in the river. Majima dismisses it, and says he was simply nervous due to it being his first time killing anyone. Majima returns to the warehouse, where Sagawa's assassins find him, Makoto and Lee. The three are forced to make a last-ditch attempt to escape from Sotenbori, but before they can flee the city, Lee is killed by his van exploding, leaving Majima and Makoto injured and helpless from the blast. Sagawa appears, scolding Majima for disobeying him once again. He is about to kill them both when Masaru Sera arrives and shoots Sagawa in the back, knocking out a desperate Majima and forcibly taking Makoto away. Majima ends up at the mercy of Sagawa, who proceeds to torture him for his insubordination, only sparing him because Majima is the only one he suspects can get information about Makoto's whereabouts from Nishitani, who has taken a liking to him. Majima finds Nishitani through the corrupt cop Billiken, who brings him to the jail cell Nishitani is quite comfortably residing in. Nishitani tells Majima everything he knows about the situation,and reveals that Makoto has been taken by the Nikkyo Consortium, run by Sera, to a brothel called Camellia Grove. As they attempt to leave, Nishitani and Billiken are killed by a bribed guard, and Majima escapes to tell Sagawa where Makoto is held. Together Majima and Sagawa travel outside the city limits of Sotenbori, and Majima fights his way to Sera, who tells him the truth about Makoto holding the deed to the empty lot. Sera gives Majima a choice between keeping Makoto safe or killing him to find her himself, to which Majima throws down his gun and puts his trust in Sera. However, Sagawa appears from behind Sera and shoots him, and steals Kazuma Kiryu's business card from his breast pocket. Sagawa then takes Majima to Kamurocho in order to track down Makoto for themselves. Once there, Majima is told that Shimano wants to see him. Shimano says that he had hoped Makoto would give the deed to Majima, who by this point trusted him more than anyone else, and in turn Majima would hand over the land to both Shimano and Sagawa as per their plan to promote Shimano to power, thereby also removing Dojima from his seat. Mortified at the realization that he has been manipulated from the start, Majima goes off on his own - taking matters into his own hands, he fights both Osamu Kashiwagi and Akira Nishikiyama for information on Makoto's whereabouts. When he does find Makoto at the site of the empty lot, Makoto begs him to kill Dojima's lieutenants in retaliation for their part in her brother's death, but Majima declines her offer of 1 billion yen, pleading for her not to not go down a road she'll regret. The two of them go out to get takoyaki, but Makoto gives him the slip, sending a delegate to tell him to meet her tomorrow if he decides to help her avenge her brother's death. Majima shows up at the Vacant Lot but is greeted by Shibusawa's men, who tell him that Makoto has arranged everything herself and is already meeting with Dojima and his lieutenants. He beats down the assassins and rushes to the Sebastian Building only to arrive at the very moment she is shot by Lao Gui. Majima is stricken with grief and anger, and tears his way through everyone that stands between him and Makoto. Once he defeats the last of Dojima's men, he kneels before Makoto and quickly realizes that she's still breathing. Sera appears with his men and rushes Makoto to the hospital. As the doors to the operating room shut, Majima breaks down, vowing that he'll grant her wish of eliminating the Dojima Family. He goes on a rampage through Dojima HQ, defeating Hiroki Awano and Lao Gui. He is stopped from killing Dojima by Sera, who reveals that Makoto has given him possession of the land, and that Makoto has recovered but is now in a coma. Sera demands one last task of Majima: to kill Shimano for his betrayal to the Tojo clan and for conspiring with the Omi Alliance. Majima returns to the boss' office with a gun in his hand. Facing his boss, he prepares to take the fall for the murder of his patriarch in exchange for his return to the yakuza. However, he ultimately decides not to kill Shimano, and instead asks for the truth of Saejima's fate in exchange for his own life. To preserve his own life, Shimano kills the Omi delegate he had been negotiating with, and tells Majima it was in his intention to send him to Sotenbori and reinstate Majima back into the clan. Years later, he meets with Sagawa for the final time, telling him that he's going to "live his own way", inspired by the likes of Lee and Nishitani, and to a lesser extent, Sagawa himself. Majima runs into Makoto again, who is being harassed by fellow Shimano family members. He saves her, not saying a word so as to not reveal his identity to her. He leaves Makoto in the hands of Tateyama, the doctor who had been helping her regain her sight, after deeming him worthy of Makoto's love when he stands up to Majima for her sake. Majima crosses paths with Kiryu as he walks down the streets of Kamurocho, and greets him with the newfound enthusiasm of the Mad Dog of Shimano: "Yo, Kiryu-chan..!" Overview Majima is a resourceful, charismatic, and commanding individual. He has gained the respect of friend and foe alike, often with his ferocious abilities in battle. Despite being the patriarch of his own family - and later, lieutenant advisor to the sixth chairman, Daigo Dojima - he dislikes serious meetings and often finds a way to showily barge his way into them. He is shown to have a soft spot for his family members - even if he is prone to physically punishing them for their disobedience. He has a fierce, somewhat twisted sense of loyalty, especially when it comes to his rival-turned-friend, Kazuma Kiryu. Majima believes he is the only one entitled to kill Kiryu, and has nearly died trying to protect that right. In later games, it appears to become somewhat of a running joke between the two rather than a true threat. He respects physical power above all else, and often pesters Kiryu into fighting him to prove himself whenever a favor is asked of him. He commonly reminds others that he has standards to uphold as a yakuza, despite his theatrically unhinged persona, and states that he dislikes dishonorable men, especially ones that intentionally break rules. He is shown to go out of his way to help civilians that are put in danger by yakuza affairs, specifically women and children, who he has a soft spot for. Occasionally his sense of self preservation will win over his need to do the right thing, and unlike Kiryu, he is not above turning a blind eye to the suffering of others. If there is a chance that something will cause problems for himself or anyone close to him, he will not hesitate to throw others under the bus. His "Mad Dog" act is primarily inspired by three men - three paragons of the "tenacity" that he wishes to embody 2 - that he comes to know in Yakuza 0; Homare Nishitani, a man who lives for the thrill, putting excitement and the pursuit of pleasure above all else, Wen Hai Lee who uses his strength to protect the ones he loves, and Tsukasa Sagawa, who, as Majima says, is "damn near immortal." To Sagawa, he vows to "have more fun and live crazier than any of 'em." He is polite and respectful by nature to civilians and to his superiors, and is surprisingly pragmatic, all three of which made him a fantastic businessman throughout his life, as shown by his success with The Grand and Club Sunshine, and later his construction company, Majima Construction. This also leads him to being favored by his superiors, sometimes against his will, as is the case with Tsukasa Sagawa. Majima loves baseball, and considers it a bonding activity, associating it with both Saejima and Kiryu. Nishida calls him sentimental, seeing him mope around before Kiryu plans to leave for Okinawa. He is shown to hold on very closely to the past, and never forgets a promise. He is loyal to a fault - particularly when it comes to Saejima, and later Kiryu - and will put anyone that he cares about above himself. Fighting Style * Majima makes his canonical playable debut with the ability to switch between different fighting styles never displayed in the series before. Mirroring Kiryu, his has four styles revolving around a default balanced style that is effective in most, if not all situations; a style focused on power that relies on slow but immensely strong attacks and increases resistance to enemy attacks; a style focused on speed to hit enemies quickly while dodging just as fast to avoid being hit; and a secret, legendary fighting style that the character in question will canonically adopt as their fighting style for the rest of the series. * Majima is skilled in the use of many weapons, including nunchaku, swords, knives, bats, and batons. Compared to Kiryu's brute swinging, Majima wields them with proper technique and training. His choice of empty handed combat appears to be hapkido mixed with dirty fighting techniques. ''Thug'' * Majima's canonical style throughout Yakuza 0. A fluid and balanced combination of punches, kicks, elbow strikes, and counters, based off of street fighting, with hints of sneak attacks and other dishonest forms of fighting. This style may represent Majima's resourcefulness in battle despite the lack of proper training, having an unconventionally firm, low fighting stance in combination with fluid and even acrobatic strikes. Compared to Kiryu's Brawler style, Thug style is notably quicker in pace and considerably more agile in the use of Majima's body weight, consisting of attacks intended to strike blind spots and weak points over brute force. Many Thug style maneuvers make use of a variety of underhanded techniques such as jabbing foes in the eye or quickly subduing them with a forceful neck snap. Thug style also demonstrates Majima's ruthlessness, such as his ability to string together and loop an excessively long series of punches and elbow strikes on a single target, or perform a Heat Move that repeatedly bashes his victim's face against wall, continuously beating enemies long after he's overpowered them. Majima is also able to dodge twice using this style thanks to his speed. He is also able to handle certain melee weapons with grace, perform disarming tackles on enemies who carry a gun, detect concealed weapons on enemies, and even steal said weapons to use himself; This further adds to his apparent resourceful nature. Thug style emits a blue aura. * 'Slugger ' * The second fighting style Majima learns. A Power style that emphasizes Majima's ability to effectively wield melee weapons, primarily baseball bats, in surprisingly skillful fashion. There are several different styles of weapons when utilizing Slugger, aside from the default baseball bat (dubbed Pummeling Bat in international releases), including long poles, kali sticks, tonfa, nunchaku, and swords. This style taps into Majima's natural aptitude for weaponry, best shown when he wields the Pummeling Bat in a unique manner that transforms what would otherwise be a simple blunt instrument into a tool with which he performs graceful yet powerful weapon strikes.Slugger style combos consist of attacks that draw from a range of different weapon arts, such as stick-fighting, polearms, and even swordsmanship and nunchaku, while still maintaining the infrequent batting swing. Usage of weapons in this style disables Majima from grabbing an enemy, but is instead switched to a guard-breaking attack. Compared to Thug style which enables Majima to dodge twice from enemies, Slugger only allows Majima to dodge once by default. He learns no new Slugger style moves from his master, instead learning to master other weapons. Slugger style emits a yellow aura. * ''Breaker '' * Dubbed "Dancer" in the Japanese version. The third fighting style that Majima learns in the game; A Speed style that makes use of dancing skills and Majima's agility, combining elements from capoeira with breakdancing. This style can be seen as representing Majima's loose combat prowess and unpredicatability when fighting. Attacks in Breaker style are mainly delivered with high-momentum spinning maneuvers typical of power moves in dancing, with a near-exclusive focus on kicking and leg sweeping to attack surrounding enemies. The majority of Majima's moves are takenly directly from b-boying, using handstanding floorwork manuevers such as stabs, windmills, 6-steps, etc. Breaker style combat mainly involves transitioning from the basic rush combo into the aforementioned b-boy maneuvers, repeatedly tapping Triangle to continue his attack as he strikes any foes in range over and over with his kicks for an extended period. In this style, Majima cannot grab; instead, he will perform a backflip. However, after purchasing a certain ability, Majima will be able to dodge, perform a foot lock, and do a strike to an enemy. Majima is also able to do a Freeze Pose, allowing him to follow up on his finishers and continue attacking further. Weapons can be equipped, but only for those that are in the inventory (a certain ability will enable Majima to throw small objects into an enemy). A unique feature in this style is Majima can increase his Heat by dancing in-place. Breaker style emits a magenta aura. * ''Mad Dog of Shimano (Legend) '' * The final, optional fighting style that Majima unlocks after finishing the Cabaret Club Czar substory. Shortened to "Mad Dog", this fighting style is loosely inspired by Homare Nishitani’s knife-wielding fighting style, and is what Majima eventually adopts in titles that take place chronologically later than Yakuza 0. Majima will hold a tantō (dubbed the Demonfire Dagger) as a default weapon, and utilize a specialized fighting style that relies on bold acrobatic punches and kicks and ferocious weapon attacks in a style built around relentless aggression. Majima often throws all of his weight into various lunging strikes and stabs, staying low to the ground and continuously moving and spinning to unleash a deadly knife assault while narrowly dodging incoming danger. Unique to this style is the ability for Majima to run at an extreme speed, faster than any other playable character in the series. A combination of Majima's other styles, such as the unconventional weapon mastery of Slugger, the momentum and showmanship of Breaker, and the underhanded fighting of Thug meld into what is Majima's one-and-only signature fighting style. A unique passive ability for this style is "Mad Dog's Darkness", which allows certain upgrades and abilities from Majima's three other styles to be applied to Mad Dog. This style disables Majima's ability to grab, but is compensated with a low kick ability (or a spinning attack once Majima is up to the 3rd Heat bar). Counters in this style are done by stabbing an enemy in the abdominal area. As for dodging, the ability to dodge twice is retained in this style. This style disables Majima's ability to grab weapons, but he can equip various weapons stored in the inventory. The taunt for the Mad Dog style involves Majima taking a small step back and laughing maniacally, and is unique in the game because it actually causes him to lose Heat (slightly less than Dragon of Dojima's "Serenity" ability). Mad Dog style emits a dark purple aura. Appearance Majima has a lean build, which he utilizes to achieve incredible levels of speed and agility. He appears to have more muscular legs than arms, which is likely due to his reliance on kicking and acrobatics. He is missing his left eye, which was gouged out for insubordination in 1985. His eyelid appears to still be intact, presumably due to Majima keeping his eye open when it was stabbed. In Yakuza 0, 1, and 2, his eyepatch is blank. From Yakuza 3 onward, his eyepatch is adorned with a silver snake emblem. His hair is cut just above his ears, with the rest of his head shaven. In Yakuza 0, he wears his hair long enough to be pulled into a low ponytail. His tattoo covers his biceps, upper chest, and stretches from his neck to the back of his thighs. It consists of a floral motif (similar to Shimano's), with a Hannya on his back, and twin snakes wrapped around his arms and chest. His attire remains mostly the same throughout the series, usually consisting of a snakeskin jacket and leather pants. In Yakuza 0, he wears a black tuxedo over a white dress shirt, with or without his black bow tie, depending on if he is working at the Grand or not. He is shown wearing a yellow patterned button-up and high-waisted pants prior to the Ueno Seiwa hit and during his marriage to Mirei Park in 1992. In Yakuza 3, 4 and Dead Souls, he wears a dark grey suit over a red dress shirt and black tie. He is rarely shown without his black leather gloves or steel-tipped shoes - one of the few instances in later games being in Yakuza 3, during his and Kiryu's arena match. Relationships *Unspecified. Arc Involvement * None. Trivia' * Majima is one of two characters in the series who has been shown to be a standard boss, a final boss, an AI partner in fights (''Kenzan!, Dead Souls, Ishin!, Kiwami) and a playable character (0, Kiwami 2, Dead Souls, Kenzan!), the other being Ryuji Goda. * Majima ranked 1st place in the fan most favourite characters poll, according to Sega due to being comic relief.3 * Majima appears as a guest character in the following video games: Project X Zone 2, Binary Domain, Kyoutou Kotoba RPG: Kotodaman and Taiko No Tatsujin DX. ** His likeness was featured in Persona 5: Dancing in Starlight as a DLC costume for Ann Takamaki. ** In Phantasy Star Online 2, the player can obtain Majima's hairstyle, outfit (including his construction hat), and tantō. * His signature weapon is a tantō that is adorned with floral designs, which he handles with immense grace and agility despite seemingly having no proper training with it. While not relying on it in combat, Majima uses it in tandem with his own punches and kicks. His final unlockable fighting style in Yakuza 0 is his infamous "Mad Dog of Shimano" style. This has him use it for the first time in combat, and while bringing it out, he will laugh maniacally as he adopts his Mad Dog persona. ** In Yakuza, his tantō has a red sheath but in subsequent games, as well as Yakuza 1&2 HD, it was changed to black. * Majima's given name Goro is associated with the number 56 because the numbers 5 and 6 in Japanese can be pronounced as go-ro. Two of his shotguns in Yakuza: Dead Souls are called the "MJM56 Crazy Dog" and "MJM56-55 Exorcist" respectively, and he starts off with 56,000 yen in the Majima Saga of Yakuza Kiwami 2. * Majima is implied to be a fan of Haruka Sawamura from when she first became an idol up until her retirement. * According to Yakuza: Dead Souls, Majima has a pollen allergy. He hardly knows what allergies are when the topic is brought up in Yakuza 0, which may suggest he developed it later in life. * Majima mentions that he has a spotty memory and often forgets things, like why he's left the house or what he was meant to buy while out shopping. In Dead Souls, a note from Nishida states he constantly forgot the combination to a safe installed in the Majima Family office and claimed to not be able to remember his own cell phone number. * In addition to his fondness for zombie movies (first seen in Dead Souls and reiterated in Yakuza Kiwami), The Weapons Video Seller substory and the Yakuza Kiwami 2 equivalent suggest he is also a fan of bizarre martial arts films, including titles such as Deadly Thumb Wrestling! and Legend of the Drunken Fist: Essence of Champagne. * Majima appears to have a sense of care for the environment. In Yakuza 4's 1985 flashback, he is shown telling Saejima about the ozone layer dissolving in response to his comment about the abnormally hot weather. This can also be seen in one of Kiwami's Majima Everywhere encounters, where he can be found about to beat up a civilian for not putting his plastic in the recyclable bin. After losing to Kiryu in the ensuing fight, Majima says, "separatin' your trash is a man's civic duty! Ya gonna be there to take responsibility when we got toxic-ass dioxins floatin' around?!" * Hi-Lite appears to be his preferred brand of cigarettes..